A North Dakota man committed suicide inside a courtroom by slitting his own throat moments after learning he had been found guilty.
Jeffrey Sahl Ferris, 55, grabbed an object and cut into his neck in the federal courthouse in Fargo on Monday afternoon as the judge, courtroom staffers and other witnesses looked on, the U.S. Marshals Service said.
“The guy turned around and you could see the inside of his neck. He had slit his neck with some object,” a witness told WDAY News.
“There was blood all over the walls in the courtroom, and the Marshals had wrestled him to the floor. You could hear him screaming, ‘I can’t breathe’.”
Emergency crews responded to the courthouse shortly after 2 p.m.
Some witnesses described seeing Ferris use what looked like a pen, scalpel or plastic shank.
Another source told Native News Online that the instrument of death appeared to be an envelope opener.
The defendant killed himself after hearing he had been found guilty of at least one charge in connection with an incident in April 2020, when he allegedly almost ran over a group of youths in his SUV on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation.
Ferris, a descendant of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, had been accused of using his vehicle to chase the youths away from an abandoned house near his home, Native News Online reported.
According to court documents, he allegedly caused one of the fleeing minors to crash on a dirt bike before pointing a 9mm handgun at the prostrate youth and threatening to kill him if he ever came near the location again.
Ferris had faced a range of charges, including assault with a deadly weapon, reckless endangerment, terrorizing and using a firearm in a violent felony, WDAY News reported.
He was found guilty of using a firearm in the presence of a minor, according to Native News Online.
Ferris was looking at a minimum of seven years in prison, sources familiar with the case said.
Shortly after the jury had returned their verdict and been escorted out of the courtroom, the defendant asked the judge if he could be released until sentencing, a witness told WDAY News.
When the judge refused, Ferris reportedly asked if he might at least be permitted a 24-hour release in order to arrange a child care situation.
When the second request was also denied, Ferris reached for the object and slit his throat.
The FBI is working to determine exactly what Ferris used to commit suicide and how he managed to get a potentially lethal object past courtroom security.
“I can’t remember the last time an event like this happened where somebody was able to smuggle in some contraband into a federal courtroom and die of a self-inflicted wound,” FBI spokesman Kevin Smith told WDAY News.
“Very, very, very odd. Very unusual,” he added.